…unless, that is, you happen to be a Taliban or al Qaeda fighter. In which case, you might want to ease off the roughage here soon.
After all, not even a terrorist would want to show up for his date with 72 raisins having soiled his jihadi tighty-whities because some infidel watching a plasma screen in a Florida conference room pushed a button and sent a Hellfire missile his way — all while enjoying a Diet Coke and a bag of sourcream and onion Ruffles, and skimming through Little Green Footballs in a separate browser window.
They’d never hear it coming in time to perform the act of soilage.
Hellfire… how superbly appropriate a moniker.
Then maybe the Hellfire’s should be outfitted with a “Yeehaaaaaawwwwwww!” function that clicks on a split second before impact.
Because the soiling really is a nice touch.
I anticipate more movies about military hardware that escapes control of its masters. ;-)
I do, however, have serious reservations about too much dependency on remote control, information and command…. um… command, control, communications? We really have no idea how dependent we are on that stuff until it doesn’t work anymore.
MOAB. Quit pussyfooting around.
Do it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Reaper!
The Next Best Thing to Orbit
Diet Coke and a bag of sourcream and onion Ruffles
Given he’s below the Mason-Dixon line, and he’s shooting at Islamists, I think a better choice of snack would be pork rinds.
Dr. Pepper and Moon Pies.
Synova – your concern is well founded – this type of, uh, system, is best suited for very special missions, or interdiction in vast, mostly empty areas. Well, it doesn’t appear to be all that bad a source of on-call CAS either…
man, what kind of gig is that? You go to work, grease a few jihadis, go home have a few beers, watch a ballgame one the plasma, catch a little nookie and head off to bed, only to get up and do it again tomorrow.
“How was work today, honey?”
Fuckin’ A, sweetheart. Work was the bomb.
I think they should call the next missile designed specifically for the Reaper “the Moon Pie.”
Would make the editors at the NYT cringe every time they had to print it.
Jeff,
I like that. The AGM-38A1 Moon Pie… I’ll see if I can punt that up the Ordnance Corps channels.
What would be cool is to mount a 30 mm GAU-8 off of an A-10 on a Reaper……
The AGM-38A1 Moon Pie
Somehow that reminds me of Perry Como.
” Because the soiling really is a nice touch. ”
Hell yeah! That’s what makes it more than another damn video game.
The Luftwaffe (I can’t spell in English, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I messed up in German too) used to hang sirens on their dive bombers. I’m sure the pilot was laughing manically when he looked though the bomb sight.
” We really have no idea how dependent we are on that stuff until it doesn’t work anymore. ”
I stopped at Kragan to get a Quart of oil, but when I took it to the register, all I got was helpless looks. It seems the power went out on that block, and the manager told me they couldn’t open the cash registers, and therefore couldn’t give me change. All I had was a five, so I spun on my heel and left. I can’t believe the guy didn’t break out the petty cash, a pad, a pencil, and conduct business.
I hope the military doesn’t forget how to conduct business.
Seasons don’t fear the Reaper
Nor do the wind or the sun or the rain
But the Taliban on the other hand….
We can be like they are
Come on Achmed…
Lookout! Moon Pie!
synova-
I do, however, have serious reservations about too much dependency on remote control, information and command…. um… command, control, communications?
Yup… Gotta consider the 3 “C’s”!
BTW, we have recently programmed a “neural net” to monitor and advise on these exact situations- we have been calling it “SkiNet” because we have been using it to “alter” the winter traffic at Aspen and Lake Tahoe…
(How many times have you gone to Tahoe for the “great skiing”, only to sit in the lodge in front of the fire while it’s 62 degrees outside—and you’re trying to scratch your balls under two pairs of long-johns and them goofy ski-pants!)
We own you…
That would be cool, but it would exceed the Reaper’s lifting capacity:
More likely, it’d carry a number of Hellfires maybe close to a dozen SDBs. Hellfires only weigh 100 lbs or so, but they take up space, so it’d be hard to fit, say, 30 of them on the aircraft.
The targeting sensor system looks strangely familiar, but maybe they all look like that.
Years ago, I had an idea for a science fiction story. It would involve the evolution of warfare to include more remotely-piloted vehicles. The natural nickname for remote pilots would be ‘reapers’.
Damn, I was close.
I want to see the uniform patch for this unit. If they don’t have a hooded figure wielding a scythe, they’re missing a great recruiting tool.
Which is a bad-ass name of it’s own. “Moon Pie”?, naah. Call the missile the Scythe. The operators will probably nick it “international harvester” though.
(MQ-9) Reaper: Shut up, you Taliban… You Talibans, all you do is talk, and talk, and say “let me tell you something” and “I just wanna say.”
Well, you’re dead now, so shut up.
Heh, moon pies or pork rinds beat MREs any day!
Sounds like there’s plenty of payload to carry Michael Vick and drop him on those jihadist sons of bitches. He’d drown them with his bare hands like so many dogs that “did not perform well in testing sessions”.
A.P. – U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings (Republican) previously questioned this plan implying that Michael Vick would be much better deployed against “failing public schools” here at home. When a professional non-partisan independent public-spirited journalist present at the press conference pointed out to the conservative administrator Spellings that U.S. law forbids drowning school principals because of poor test results she (Republican) replied “it … feels … good.”
I hope the military doesn’t forget how to conduct business.
Sawright. We still got Marines.
Sounds like there’s plenty of payload to carry Michael Vick and drop him on those jihadist sons of bitches
Nope, undoubtedly against the Geneva Protocols.
If the military won’t use their Active Denial System, they certainly won’t use Vick.
More’s the pity.
Maybe I was wrong about Goldstein not being a weenie boy.
And what a load of utter crap that is. “Sorry, we can’t use this system that causes temporary pain, because it might upset someone. Instead, we’ll have to disperse your riot with a Ma-Deuce. Hope you enjoy the short remainder of your life!”
I have no doubt that in the near future, there will be a riot that COULD have been dispersed with the ADS, but our forces will be forced to use lethal force. The shrieking, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and demands for the punishment of every officer in the chain of command up to the CinC.
Sod off, Caric.
…some infidel watching a plasma screen in a Florida conference room pushed a button and sent a Hellfire missile his way  all while enjoying a Diet Coke and a bag of sourcream and onion Ruffles, and skimming through Little Green Footballs in a separate browser window.
Man, those Air Force pukes have it made.
“Maybe I was wrong…”
Is that a glimmer of light I see? Probably just some lightning bugs.
Caric is here making strange noises. He makes more sense with that dick back in his mouth.
“#Comment by Ric Caric on 8/30 @ 6:07 am #
Maybe I was wrong about Goldstein not being a weenie boy.”
So when did you have boots on the ground in Afghaniatan?
I’m amazed that the pure simplicity of the perfessor’s critical thinking and kneejerk conclusions don’t result in him being bored to death … by himself.
It’s a curious thing…
Hey, if this Reaper doesn’t doesnt intimidate the Taliban I say launch a Starbucks attack on them like we did on Russia this morning… Let’s see how much those Islamonazis like crappy coffee with silly nancy-boy names on every corner destroying their indigenous coffee beverage market. Those bastards sit on every corner and loiter a lot longer than 16 hours…
As a matter of fact, I’m thinkin Iran could use a few Venti Caramel Machiatto cruise missiles and Java Chip Frappuccino CBUs as well..
Assuming that really is Caric… what about an interest in military hardware makes someone a weenie boy? Real Men (TM) can’t have an interest in firepower? What?
That’s sort of like saying that Real Men (TM) can’t have an interest in boobies.
No more The Man Show for you!
To date, the most intelligent statement I’ve heard out of Dr. Caric.
Tragedy, I know, but what else can you expect from a guy who…what, Philidelphia?
Up in the air, junior birdmen!
Synova:
Isn’t it obvious? Any public interest in BIG guns, BIG bombs carried by BIG planes that will eventually make BIG booms on poor brown people in remote places indicates a pathetic attempt to overcompensate ones self-perceived masculinity in a vain attempt to achieve the idealized concept of teh male given to you by your repressed, overcompensating sexist conservative father and or [insert preening male role model here.]
Isn’t that perfectly clear?
Kind of on-topic:
I was watching “Future Weapons” last night (yeah, gun porn) and it seems Barrett has a new sniper rifle – called the 416 (for .416 caliber?). The guy was poking holes in a 6-inch target from a mile and a half away, 2500 yards.
Now THAT’S an impressive gun, baby…
Caric is a member of the University Diversity Initiative. Yet he considers conservatives a “cancer.”
In one simple, elegant, performative swoop, Caric shows the bankruptcy of the modern day diversophile.
There’s a real talent to being a walking self parody.
The .416 is a smaller caliber version of the Barrett .50 BMG sniper rifle, as far as I can tell.
Thats because it’s about the FEELING, not teh thinking, Jeff.
Article here, FWIW.
A thousand approved masculinities blooming.
(Girls like gun porn, powerful machines and Al Qaida pants soiling, too. As well as discussions about military tactics and dangerous technological dependencies. I’m not sure what this means but it must mean something.)
And what a load of utter crap that is.
Indeed. And we can thank the hysterics of people like Andrew Sullivan for that insane decision.
I have no doubt that in the near future, there will be a riot that COULD have been dispersed with the ADS, but our forces will be forced to use lethal force.
It isn’t just that, in the event of a situation like that, it is more likely that a US serviceman is more likely to die without the help of the system because the only other way to keep the peace is getting in amongst the rioters. I wonder if the Sullivans of the world will care about that dead soldier.
Probably not.
_________________________________________
As an aside.
That isn’t Caric. Check the link.
Reapers make perfesser ummmmm’s friends dead. Hurt perfesser ummmmm’s feelings. Feelings all perfesser ummmmm has. Mean Jeff “weenie boy” Goldstein.
That’s Caric’s blog, TomB.
ignore the perfesser. I’m sure most of his students do.
If a weapons platform called the Reaper is to have any sort of audible warning installed, it had better be cowbell.
Aaaaaannnnndddddddd…. scooter calls for…..
MORE COWBELL!!!!!!
That first word doesn’t belong.
Cue the ghost of Dean Martin:
When you light up the sky
Like an AGM-38A1 Moon Pie
That’s-a Reaper!
I think the Hellfire needs to be fit out with a mirror on the nose, below any sensors, so the last thing you see as it comes at you is your own horrified expression.
Or is that, I dunno, vindictive?
That’s Caric’s blog, TomB.
Heh. My bad. I read RedState and never really noticed the website addy.
TomB – It is very un-noticeable.
Other mangled Blue Oyster Cult song lyrics…
o/~A Fire of Unknown Origin/Blew Achmed Away!o/~
There’s a real talent to being a walking self parody.
Agreed! Al Sharpton was so ‘talented’ that actually got “stage-time” in the 2004 Dem debates!
Speaking of oysters…
Mmmm…oysters.
My personal favorite, and
For your inner pyro.